Jul 27th, 2025 13:34 JST
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Thursday, June 26th 2025
Nintendo Switch 2 Slammed for Poor Display—120 Hz With 30 FPS Response Times
Despite the Nintendo Switch 2 offering rather modest specifications by today's standards, even for a handheld gaming device, it has already broken console sales records with over 3.5 million sales in its first four days on the market. The on-paper specs claim that the Nintendo Switch 2 is capable of 120 Hz, promising a sizeable upgrade over the 60 FPS display of the original Switch and Switch OLED. Recent testing by Monitors Unboxed and Digital Foundry, however, reveal that these claims may be less than honest, since the handheld console's real-world performance falls short by a fair margin.
The most noticeable issue with the Nintendo Switch 2's display is the response times. Despite having a 120 Hz display, Monitors Unboxed found in its testing that the display achieved an average response time of as high as 33 ms. While testing was conducted at 60 FPS, the response times even fall short of this low bar, with 16.67 ms being the slowest response time required for the pixels to refresh between frames such as to avoid blur or smearing. Even the original Nintendo Switch manages faster response times, with an average of 21.3 ms. This is further exemplified by the Blur Busters test conducted by Monitors Unboxed, where significant loss of detail can be seen in fast-moving objects. Brightness was better on the Switch 2 in Monitors Unboxed's testing, measuring in at around 400 nits, but contrast is less than spectacular, with contrast ratios measuring in at just 1068:1. Color performance was also good on the new Switch 2, with 97.6% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, however HDR performance suffered from the relatively low brightness and a lack of color management, which makes Switch 1 games seem more saturated than intended.
Monitors Unboxed goes on to theorize that the Switch 2's display is slow because Nintendo has seemingly not enabled overdrive and may be running additional low-voltage settings, likely to conserve energy and extend battery life. The end result of this is that, while the Nintendo Switch 2 may feel more responsive to play on, especially at 120 FPS, it comes at a noticeable sacrifice in image clarity at those higher resolutions. The likely cause of these slow response times also means Nintendo could theoretically address the issues with a firmware update.
Digital Foundry found similar results in its testing, with the publication similarly criticizing the Switch 2's display for its poor motion performance but also adding that the Switch 2's backlight is disappointingly a single panel instead of using dimming zones or something like a mini LED display, making a "true HDR" experience impossible on the Switch 2's built-in display.
Sources:
Monitors Unboxed, Digital Foundry
The most noticeable issue with the Nintendo Switch 2's display is the response times. Despite having a 120 Hz display, Monitors Unboxed found in its testing that the display achieved an average response time of as high as 33 ms. While testing was conducted at 60 FPS, the response times even fall short of this low bar, with 16.67 ms being the slowest response time required for the pixels to refresh between frames such as to avoid blur or smearing. Even the original Nintendo Switch manages faster response times, with an average of 21.3 ms. This is further exemplified by the Blur Busters test conducted by Monitors Unboxed, where significant loss of detail can be seen in fast-moving objects. Brightness was better on the Switch 2 in Monitors Unboxed's testing, measuring in at around 400 nits, but contrast is less than spectacular, with contrast ratios measuring in at just 1068:1. Color performance was also good on the new Switch 2, with 97.6% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, however HDR performance suffered from the relatively low brightness and a lack of color management, which makes Switch 1 games seem more saturated than intended.
Jul 27th, 2025 13:34 JST
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- [Intel AX1xx/AX2xx/AX4xx/AX16xx/BE2xx/BE17xx] Intel Modded Wi-Fi Driver with Intel® Killer™ Features (375)
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66 Comments on Nintendo Switch 2 Slammed for Poor Display—120 Hz With 30 FPS Response Times
It's interesting how the sw2 display has worse latency than the sw1 display.
I have to wonder how many of us were (mostly-figuratively) born yesterday?
Anyone that's been into (handheld/console) gaming since the GameBoy-DS-> days should've already noticed the pattern:
Nintendo actively and purposefully 'gimps' first release hardware, leaving room for an 'S', 'lite', etc. revision.
The fact the display is slower than the first switch, really highlights that the system really should have shipped with an OLED for day 1. It isn't HDR capable. It isn't capable of hitting 120FPS in anything other than the menus. Just ship it with a 60hz OLED and docked could be 120hz with LFC and set the target for developers to be 40FPS.
It really seems like you're getting a subpar product, when we all know that an OLED version is coming in 2-3 years, to extract more money from users.
We all know it doesn't really matter the quality, it's all vibes and aura and shit nowadays. Post truth world.
Inevitable gap here for the OLED refresh. Hopefully they do respond to feedback and perhaps give users the option to run the display with overdrive/higher voltage to boost response times.
/s
The fact that no one has noticed it until put under the microscope says everything that needs to be said - the screen is perfectly fine for what it is.
as with hardware.. limitations with handheld mode battery life... cant put more powerful processors...
But the price is downright horrific. €550 sans game, when the Switch OLED was released at €400 andthe OG Switch was €330 with Breath of the Wild.
For that time it was technologically OK (display was from 2007 or 2008). But such latency now is disgusting.
They sell it for gaming. Anything above 8ms is problem for gaming, even at 5ms ghosting is quite noticeable.
Edit- The sad thing is quite a few budget TV's have better response times, so once the console is connected to a tv the difference in performance would be noticeable.
My 2DS' screen was complete garbage even by the standards of when it came out, but I still had plenty of fun with it. In the case of the Switch/Switch 2, you aren't even stuck with using it if you don't like it. Just dock and connect to a display of your choice.